


Four, Seven, Eight

by halseam (orphan_account)



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Panic Attacks, yeah that’s it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 07:59:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14765667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/halseam
Summary: Connor helps Evan calm down from a panic attack.





	Four, Seven, Eight

Evan doesn’t really know what triggered this attack, he can just remember sitting in the middle of biology class and suddenly wheezing and sobbing and scrambling to get out of the classroom.  
Biology is his best class, and probably the one that will land him a job he actually enjoys, so the attack over his future is, like, 90 percent off the table.  
No one was talking to him, he was just sitting in the corner and happily doing his work, so that gets rid of social anxiety attack.  
He wasn’t called on by the teacher. His pencil was fully sharpened. He still had plenty sheets of blank paper. His mind just sort of went, ‘hey it’s been a while.’  
So, here he is, sobbing and pulling at his hair in the closest boys bathroom.  
He desperately tries to even out his breathing to get back to class, counting those three numbers his therapist told him to remember. But what order do they go in? Does he breath in for seven, hold for eight, out for four? In for eight, hold for four, out for seven? Oh, come on you idiot, you know this. You’ve been doing it for years now, and practice it every night before you go to sleep, and you forget it now? You dumbass.  
The door slams open, the sound scaring Evan. So he whimpers loudly and scrambles to the corner, hugging his legs and rocking back and forth, trying to convince himself to stand up and apologize to the visitor.  
He takes open mouthed shaky breaths, two breaths in for every one out, so he can taste the saltiness of his tears on his lips. He stares at the tiled floor, the beige blurry and impossible to see.  
The visitor leans down.  
He puts his arm on Evan’s shoulder despite Evan flinching away.  
“Hey, hey, calm down… it’s okay,” a soothing voice says. A voice Evan immediately recognizes as Connor.  
Evan whimpers and blinks, looking up at the blurry distortion of Connor.  
“I’m here, okay? You’re not alone,” Connor whispers, rubbing his thumb slowly against Evan’s shoulder, “shhh. You’re fine. Four, seven, eight, okay? Breathe with me.” Connor takes a four second breath in and looks down at Evan.  
That’s what they were.  
Connor slowly breathes out, holding his free hand out in a gesture of ‘now you do it’ to Evan as he does it again.  
The two breath in and out in synchronisation, Connor pausing and waiting whenever Evan’s breath hitches or something, and making sure not to stop rubbing his thumb soothingly against Evan’s shoulder. Evan slowly stops shaking and comes to see Connor’s face clearly, the pair of them smiling warmly at each other.  
Evan takes one shaky breath and closes his eyes, leaning down and resting his head against his knees.  
“I’m- I’m so sorry,” Evan mutters.  
He can hear Connor shift and sit across from him.  
“Please don’t apologize,” Connor laughs a bit, “I wasn’t really doing anything,”  
“You should’ve been in class, though?” Evan looks up at Connor with a confused face.  
Connor’s face turns a slight shade of pink. “I _was_ in calc, but then I saw you run past the door and kind of snuck out,”  
“You shouldn’t be doing that! Connor, you can’t keep missing classes,”  
“First of all, there was no way in hell I was gonna stay in there while you were fucking sobbing your eyes out in here and breathing like you were dying. Second of all, there’s, like, less than ten minutes left. Nothing really important happens in the last ten minutes,”  
Evan shrinks against the wall, staring at the floor, “thanks…”  
“No problem,”

**Author's Note:**

> completely irrelevant but i named his doc ‘oof’ cuz that’s my default when i don’t know what to say to/name things so now i have about a million docs that have ‘oof’ as or in the title organisation is fun


End file.
